Residential house for seasonal residence. Garden houses made of timber for seasonal living. Basic infrastructure requirements

The family of our reader Vladimir Moiseev lives in St. Petersburg and has no intention of moving out of town. But sometimes they want to go out into nature, and in connection with this it was decided to build a house. You don’t need a permanent cottage - you need a house for temporary residence, just to take your family out for the summer and to relax comfortably on weekends in the winter. What expenses that are inevitable during capital construction can be avoided, and what should you not save on? Architect Igor Demenov will talk about this.

A private house: for starters - how does a seasonal house, a country house, differ from a house for permanent residence?

: First of all, it does not require such powerful enclosing structures, which are necessary in winter. If seasonal use begins in May and ends in September, the owners do not care about sub-zero temperatures. The best option for budget-conscious owners is a simple house based on a wooden frame with effective modern insulation. Cellular concrete and polyurethane foam sandwich panels are also suitable. In my opinion, there is no point in making houses with thick brick walls for seasonal use.

Seasonal housing is cheaper in many ways. It is not necessary to install expensive heat-saving double-glazed windows; single glazing is sufficient. You can also save on materials for roof insulation, and it will also weigh less. The foundation for such a building will also be lighter and cheaper. To quickly heat a small house on humid autumn days, a cassette fireplace is enough, that is, you can also abandon the radiator system.

Project B-0705-0. The highlight of this holiday home is the large covered terrace around which the ground floor rooms are grouped. On warm summer evenings it can serve as a dining room or living room. If desired, it can be glazed and insulated, turning it into a veranda.

A private house: And if you plan to come to the house in winter?

Igor Demenov: Then you need to make a normal warm house. Here it is unlikely that you will be able to save on wall material. To ensure that nothing happens to the communications in your absence, there are two options: either constantly maintain a positive temperature in the house, or carry out conservation before leaving, that is, drain all the water so that the pipes do not burst in the cold. You can use non-freezing coolants in the heating system - antifreeze or antifreeze.
Pargolovsky Concrete Concrete Plant will produce reinforced concrete products of varying degrees of complexity according to your drawings and sketches.
If you do not live in the house permanently during the autumn-spring period, the electric heating system will operate with minimal energy consumption, raising the temperature to a certain level (about 5C above zero) and immediately turning off. After all, no one will open the doors and let cold air into the house. In the absence of the owners, it is enough for the house not to freeze. With good thermal insulation, you get a “thermos”: heat will not escape from this sealed space. This means that a very small heat source will be enough to maintain a positive temperature, and energy costs will not be as huge as many people think. But if necessary, the house will quickly warm up.

A private house: What are the features of the layout of the premises in a holiday home?

Igor Demenov: The layout depends on the number of people who will use the house and their vision of the interior space. Some people prefer a single space divided into zones. If one family comes with no children, then even a bedroom can be placed in this single volume. There can be a fireplace in the center of the house, which divides the space into kitchen, living and sleeping areas. Such a single space, not delimited by walls, is easier to heat in cold weather.

A single space, not delimited by walls, is easier to heat in cold weather. Architect V. Feofanov, designer M. Zolotova, photo P. Lebedev.

There is another option for saving heat: not heating all the rooms. If guests come in the summer, more sleeping places are required. In winter, accordingly, less. You can, for example, heat the living room and one bedroom well, and leave the second cold. In this situation, you can save on roof insulation by making only a warm ceiling between the first and second floors. In short, the architectural and planning solution depends on the mode of operation of the house.

A private house: What outbuildings are necessary for living in such a house?

Igor Demenov: First, the woodshed. Of course, there is no reason to make it warm, no matter what time of year it will be used.

With the workshop - the second type of building - the situation is different. You need to decide whether you will do something there in winter and, accordingly, whether it is worth insulating it. However, if you come out of town solely to relax, then you are unlikely to need such a building at all.

The third element of the complex of additional buildings is the garage. Here it is better to maintain a temperature of +3 - 5C, so that the car starts easily even in severe frosts and so that the owners do not get into a cold car when leaving the dacha. This means that even in a house for occasional use, the garage should be insulated, unless, of course, the owners come there only in the summer.

A summer house made of mini-timbers with insulation - you can live from early spring to late autumn.

When the need arises to equip a country house for seasonal living, frame or modular-frame houses and cabins are in maximum demand. These are prefabricated, low-cost structures that, if desired, can be used year-round with insulation. Another type of relatively inexpensive seasonal houses is, which has already been described in one of the materials. Like change houses, if desired, they can be insulated and used, if not all year round, then from early spring to late autumn. This is what one of the craftsmen of our portal did, who decided to acquire a functional and comfortable house even for a seasonal stay.

• Introductory.
• Project and contractor.
• Assembly, painting, insulation.
• Finishing.

Summer house made of mini timber from SergeChe

SergeChe User FORUMHOUSE

Yes, years ago, under the idea that “soon the grandchildren will go and splash their bare heels on the grass,” I promised to bring the garden plot back to normal condition. There was water (a well), electricity, several sheds, a twenty-year-old house (log house 4x6.5 m with an attic), and a peat toilet. I started concluding contracts for the summer house and septic tank in January.

Introductory

The following requirements were imposed on the house:

• For comfortable seasonal accommodation of four adults or a family with a child.
• With amenities (shower, toilet).
• For living from spring to autumn, so that you don’t have to freeze at zero.
• Elongated in shape, due to the characteristics of the site, the maximum permissible width is 4.5-5 m.
• With a veranda terrace that can accommodate a table for 8-9 people.
• Construction using hired labor due to work schedule.
• Quick assembly of the box under the roof, so that finishing work can be easily spread out over time.

If it was possible to make it yourself, the choice would have fallen on frame technology, but due to lack of availability, the craftsman settled on houses made of mini-timber, but with additional external insulation with mineral wool with a ventilation gap.

Mini-timber is a name invented by marketers to attract clientele, but in essence it is a tongue-and-groove board with a locking joint, only with a chamfer removed, like a profiled beam.

The assembly method is identical; the structure is held together by cutting. The most common size of mini-timber/rabbet is 45 mm, less often 60 or 66 mm; the thicker, the more reliable, but also more expensive, and manufacturers of house kits are more willing to work with 45 mm boards.

The craftsman was attracted to the technology by a number of advantages:

• Assembly speed: a day for the foundation, another couple of days for the box and plank roof with insulation.
• Wall material - unlike various slabs and linings, everything you need can be fixed to the walls.
• High ceilings - a typical house design has a central ceiling height of about three meters.
• Finished interior - no need to cover the walls.

But there are also problems:

• Finishing the roof - in the standard version, heat enters through the roof in the summer, heat leaves in the spring/autumn.
• Possible drying out, inaccurate connections - if the board is not dried enough in production and the elements are cut poorly, there will be shrinkage, cracks, blowing/wicking.

Additional insulation both solves problems with the roof and eliminates possible flaws of manufacturers, since the walls will be covered with insulation and a facade screen.

SergeChe

That is, the technology (mini-timber with external insulation) has a right to life, but for relatively small houses, where walls made of mini-timber can normally withstand the additional weight of external insulation and facade finishing, where there are no long walls without additional cuts, where purlins rafter system is not too long. Conventionally, it is suitable for a one-story house with rooms no larger than 15-20 m². For larger sizes it is better to look for another material.

Project and contractor

The choice of a suitable project was limited by the elongated shape of the house; the bulk of standard designs are designed for square and rectangular shapes. The contractor we found offered good conditions, good equipment and the “Balzamin” project taken as a basis, which he willingly modified to the required functionality - they added a bathroom, a vestibule and expanded the terrace by a meter.

In order to save on additional services, such as antiseptic, painting and insulation, which are too expensive in the company, the craftsman decided to perform these operations independently or with the help of mercenaries at normal prices. I chose 60×135 mm laminated timber as the wall material, as it was more stable, but as a result I had to build from 45×135 mm timber. The contractor missed the delivery deadlines, the required timber was not available at all, we had to agree to a replacement with a recalculation so that the matter could finally get under way.

Assembly, painting, insulation

The lightweight structure made it possible to save on monolithic foundations; 15 piles with a diameter of 108 mm and a length of 2.5 m were used.

The house, the construction of which had been delayed all summer, was assembled by a team of four people in two days. In addition, as a bonus for wasted nerves, they treated the harness with an antiseptic, installed insulation and filled the subfloor. We had to pay extra for applying antiseptic to the roof and fixing the insulation. On the third day, the house took on a quite presentable appearance.

The next stage was the search for contractors to apply protective impregnation to the walls and counter-lattice under the insulation; two workers did an excellent job.

For insulation and painting of walls SergeChe brought in another team.

• The rough layer is a cut inch treated with an antiseptic.
• Galvanized – 6x6 m mesh over the entire area.
• Insulation.
• Insulation - stone wool, 50 mm slabs in two layers with overlap, only under the living part.
• Insulation.
• The final coating is a floorboard treated with an antiseptic on the underside.

Ceiling

• Hemming – imitation timber, 20 mm.
• Insulation.
• Rafters – board 100×40 mm.
• Insulation – stone wool, 50 mm slabs with offset layers.
• Insulation.
• Counter-lattice – 50 mm timber.
• The base for flexible tiles is OSB coating.
• Roof covering – flexible tiles.

Walls

• Mini timber coated with impregnation.
• The sheathing is horizontal, 50 mm timber, coated with antiseptic.
• Insulation – stone wool, slabs of 50 mm between beams.
• Insulation.
• Counter-lattice – vertical, 50 mm timber, coated with antiseptic.
• The façade cladding is 18 mm imitation timber, coated with antiseptic on the inside and painted on the outside.
• Decor elements.

The desire to have an open terrace was transformed into the desire to have a glazed veranda, which was realized through the installation of metal-plastic sliding windows and doors. This was followed by painting work, installation of finishing strips and platbands, and the construction season ended.

Finishing

During the off-season and the next season, facade work was completed - finishing the base with panels, installing soffits, installing gutters and shutters. Inside, the floors, doors and trim were finished, cornices were installed, electrical wiring was installed, lighting fixtures were installed, water and sewerage were installed, and a bathroom was installed. Furniture was purchased gradually and took its place as finishing work was completed.

05 Feb 2013

“Isn’t the question about the differences between houses for permanent and temporary residence far-fetched?” - you ask. A house is a house, but how to live in it is a purely personal matter. Old houses, once built for themselves in the countryside by patriarchal peasant families, are often bought for use as dachas, and dacha houses suddenly become places of permanent residence, for example, for retired older family members. Both of them have a roof, walls and foundation, windows and doors... And yet, despite the external similarity, there is a difference and the difference is significant. Let's try to figure it out.

“Isn’t the question about the differences between houses for permanent and temporary residence far-fetched?” - you ask. A house is a house, but how to live in it is a purely personal matter. Old houses, once built for themselves in the countryside by patriarchal peasant families, are often bought for use as dachas, and dacha houses suddenly become places of permanent residence, for example, for retired older family members. Both of them have a roof, walls and foundation, windows and doors... And yet, despite the external similarity, there is a difference and the difference is significant. Let's try to figure it out.

First, let's define what is meant by seasonal and what by permanent residence. Let's consider the Moscow region, and the residents of our houses will be considered people with children, whose source of income is working outside the walls of their home. Thus, people of creative professions, household staff, etc. we leave “out of brackets”.

At first glance, seasonal living is a classic summer dacha pastime with travel outside the city, at least for the duration of the vacation, and better yet, while the weather permits. The rest of the time the house is closed. However, this is far from the only option for “seasonal accommodation”; there are others:
- Regular trips, for example, on weekends in the warm season, plus several short trips in the cold season, at temperatures below 0 degrees Celsius.
- Accommodation in the warm season with frequent departures, for example, to work. Perhaps this is already a “lighter version” of permanent residence.

So, let's define seasonal residence as staying in a house during a person's absence from everyday activities - vacation, holidays, unemployment, etc. On the contrary, permanent residence is the use of a home during an activity that produces the main income. For an employee - during regular trips to the employer’s territory; business person - in times of need to frequently and quickly respond to external factors affecting the business. Based on the above, let us now try to determine the totality of requirements for a house for seasonal or permanent residence.

Preferred location of houses

When planning the construction or purchase of a country house, we first choose a location for it. However, when making this choice, you should already take into account the purpose of the house. For example, in the case of placing a house for seasonal residence, it is obvious that remoteness is not the main criterion for it and can be much greater than in the case of choosing a house for permanent residence.

Moreover, if a holiday home, where a person escapes from the hustle and bustle, is located close to the city, it risks eventually ending up next to the construction site of a new microdistrict, or, as often happens in old dacha areas near Moscow, gradually getting lost among the mansions of new neighbors . In both cases, the market value of ownership will change.

You should also take into account the location of the house relative to main roads, assessing them not only as convenient means of communication, but also as a source of noise. On a quiet evening, especially with high air humidity, heavy traffic on the highway can create sound discomfort at a distance of 4-5 km (when outside the house, of course). However, having a road suitable for driving at all times of the year is a prerequisite for both types of houses.

Choosing a place for permanent residence, on the contrary, first of all requires studying transport accessibility, which allows you to regularly and predictably move from it to your place of work, and for guests, delivery services, nannies and other household assistants not to experience problems when visiting this house , not only by car, but also by public transport.

So, when planning our construction, we decide that it is optimal to build houses for seasonal living at a distance of 40-80 km from the Moscow Ring Road. In this case, the direction can be chosen based on personal geographical preferences or price.

Houses for permanent residence should be built taking into account the existing network of roads and railways, at a distance of 10-30 km from the Moscow Ring Road (in highway directions - up to 40 km). In this case, any available information about development plans for the area should be taken into account. For example, when planning to build or purchase a house near the existing A-107 road, it is useful to study the plans for laying the Central Ring Road so as not to end up on the side of an 8-lane highway instead of a forest clearing.

Basic infrastructure requirements

Having decided on the location of the house, let's think about what we want to see in the neighborhood. When talking about a house for seasonal living (by which we primarily mean vacation), we imagine it in the lap of nature in the broadest sense of this stereotyped concept... A forest of considerable size, preferably mixed; at an easily surmountable distance there are places of recreation on the water, at a slightly greater distance there are interesting sights to visit.

Reconnaissance of a nearby town must be done in advance - there we will buy food and other everyday goods at reasonable prices, without tedious long journeys. One general store for three dacha villages or a drive-thru store on Wednesdays and Saturdays will not suit us, nor will weekly outings to Auchan on the Moscow Ring Road. In the same town, we hope to see a bus station from where buses regularly go to Moscow, and an advertisement for a local taxi, with a telephone number to call it. You never know what can happen!

As experience shows, anything can happen, especially when living temporarily with children. Therefore, in the nearest settlements we must find a local hospital, a children's clinic, an ambulance substation and make sure that the services they provide are at an acceptable level. It also doesn’t hurt to make sure that there is a fire station within a radius of 15-20 km. Let's not assume the worst, but even if someone sets fire to dry grass in the spring, the help of firefighters may well be required. The telephone numbers of these services, addresses and directions should be in a visible place in the house.

All of the above, with some modifications, will be true when choosing a home for permanent residence. Of course, the forest and other joys of being in nature will give way to transport infrastructure facilities (including public transport, including the train, deliberately not mentioned above) and everything that we are used to using in the city - medical services should not be available occasionally occasionally, but constantly, including the possibility of calling a doctor at home. Good shops, preferably within walking distance, become a very important factor. In addition to shops, sometimes you want to go to a cafe, a movie, a gym, a swimming pool...

In addition, only in our place of permanent residence will we need kindergartens and schools. The solution to this issue is always a compromise. It is necessary to take into account a huge number of initial factors in order to find the optimal combination of distance from home and the quality of services provided.

Main design differences between houses

Walls

Now that we have decided on the location of our house, it’s time to think about what we actually want to buy (or build) in the chosen location. It would seem that just recently the overwhelming majority of individual houses in the Moscow region were either log, sheathed with planks, or not; Among them, rare brick ones stood out, sometimes there were, as they said then, “fill-in” ones - the wall consisted of outer and inner panels made of thick boards, between which slag was poured as thermal insulation.

Most of these houses still stand in their original places - only now surrounded by a variety of modern buildings. What can you see here! Stone houses include several varieties of brick, foam concrete, aerated concrete, and simply concrete in permanent formwork...

Wooden houses are ordinary log houses made of chopped logs; logs made from rounded logs; timber made from simple sawn timber, from profiled timber (sometimes the term “tongue-and-groove timber” is used); from laminated veneer lumber; from LVL timber; glued veneer; made of insulated timber - essentially, from a narrow, highly elongated sandwich panel... Technology similar to the production of sandwich panels is also used in the construction of another type of wooden house - frame houses. My eyes are wide open!

How can you choose the best option, especially if one friend praises his log house, lined with brick, another recognizes nothing but aerated concrete, and the team building a log house on a neighboring site spits at the mention of rounded logs?

And then they confuse even more: “the ax, they say, presses and crushes the wood fibers on the surface of the log, and the milling cutters or cutters of the machine, which gives the log an ideal geometric shape, on the contrary, loosen them, besides, we, they say, put the log on the wrong side, which “looked” to the north, and the annual rings here are denser than in the south...”

The abundance of mutually exclusive arguments makes one feel uneasy. However, there is no need to worry - in practice there is nothing scary or incomprehensible. A house for permanent residence can be any of the above types, if built by qualified builders in compliance with technology. It will protect its residents from frost and rain, with proper care it will have sufficient durability, and will not ruin its owner with the cost of ownership.

True, many of our compatriots, brought up on the fairy tale “The Three Little Pigs,” do not consider a frame house to be a house, and instinctively gravitate towards a stone one. But a stone house, even if made from light, inexpensive foam blocks, is not the best solution for seasonal living.

The construction of a stone house is much more expensive than a wooden one of similar size. In particular, a reliable foundation is required, usually a strip foundation, built by specialists taking into account the properties of local soils and freezing depth.

Wooden houses, especially frame ones, can be erected on columnar foundations, bored pile foundations, pile screw foundations, and, which is most preferable for the heaving soils of the Moscow region, shallow strip foundations. In addition, when you come to a stone house on a winter weekend, you will have to spend a significant part of it warming the structure to an acceptable temperature.

This is not only uncomfortable, but can also lead to microcracks in the thickness of the walls due to their repeated freezing and thawing. The alternative is to constantly maintain above-zero temperatures using electric heaters in “standby” mode - the only, although not the best, way out of the situation.

Strictly speaking, it is technically possible to build a house that will store heat in winter from weekend to weekend; This is a building built according to the standards of a “passive house” or simply a well-insulated house, built, for example, from porous brick, and not held together with cement mortar, which is an excellent conductor of cold, but with a special glue. The house must stand on a strip foundation extending well below the soil freezing depth, and also have a basement. However, it is difficult to imagine such a structure as a home for seasonal living.

According to many experts - builders and realtors - a wooden house of any type is best suited for seasonal living. It will differ from a house for permanent residence mainly only in the thickness of the walls (thinner by 15-25%, depending on the type of house) and thermal insulation. In addition, the bathroom in it can be located in an unheated part of the building.

Roof

Let's move on. As folk construction wisdom says, “it’s not so much the build as the cut.” The roof is one of the most important parts of the house, although they often strive to build it according to the residual principle - after all, it does not have the monumentality of the foundation and is not as striking as the facade.

We will not try to reflect in this short article all the abundance of roofing materials and technologies; we will try to formulate the principles for choosing the type of roofing for our two categories of houses. We will talk about a regular pitched roof. Let’s leave flat, inversion and exploitable roofs aside for now - this is a topic worthy of a separate article.

We will assume that the roof of a house for seasonal use will often be left unattended, especially during the most difficult time for it - in winter. Snow will not be regularly cleared from it; there will be no one to notice leaks and, for example, damage to the drainage system due to ice build-up in time. Therefore, when buying a house, we will try to avoid options for houses with roofs of complex shapes and not to include such a roof in the project when building a house.

Valleys and other elements of complex roofing contribute to the formation of “snow bags”, accumulations of debris in hard-to-reach places, etc. You should also not abuse areas with a small angle of inclination of the slope, where snow can accumulate in large quantities without coming off under its own weight.

The material for the roof of such a house can be metal tiles in sheets or profiled metal sheets, preferably custom-made during construction and laid without horizontal seams from the ridge to the eaves. In addition, laying these materials does not require high qualifications. So, in relation to a house for seasonal living, our main goal is to minimize the number of joints between the elements that form the roof and to ensure the possibility of its high-quality installation using the least labor-intensive technology, avoiding complex configurations and small angles of inclination.

A house for permanent residence can have any type of roof that fits into the construction or acquisition budget. However, in this case, reliability and durability should come first. The roof must be equipped in such a way that its maintenance can be carried out from stationary stairs and bridges, access to potentially problematic areas must be provided from inside the house, and if there are heated under-roof rooms, a competent device for heat and vapor barrier must be installed to prevent the occurrence of condensation inside the roofing pie.

Of course, everything can be foreseen when building a house. When buying an existing cottage, the roof is usually the last thing people look at. And in vain, because during operation it is the roof that is done improperly that can cause the future owner the most problems. Therefore, when purchasing, pay attention to the compliance of the finished roof with everything discussed above.

Heating, plumbing, sewerage

So, we have decided on the walls and roof. How to heat the space limited by them? There are many technically feasible possibilities. We will choose taking into account the main tasks solved by heating devices in our home. We assume that the power supply of the house allows you to connect large amounts of power, and the wiring was done by a competent specialist.

You want to heat up a house for seasonal living during the heating season quickly after your arrival, and for this purpose it is optimal to provide it with radiant heating. A good solution would be electric ceiling infrared emitters, which, unlike electric convectors, heat not the air, but the floor and objects standing on it.

Of course, this does not exclude traditional heating devices suitable for both types of houses - various stoves, fireplaces, boilers that heat the coolant in radiators... When dealing with an electric boiler, it is economically beneficial to install a three-tariff electric meter and a heat accumulator in the heating system. The boiler will consume energy at night rates, and the battery will release heat during the day.

Let's consider some issues that arise when installing water supply and sewerage systems. A house for permanent residence, as a rule, has a centralized water supply, while a house for seasonal residence, in most cases, will need a well or borehole. In both cases, the main danger for the water supply in winter is the “defrosting” of pipes in extreme cold, especially the small area between the exit from the ground and the entrance to the heated room. Sometimes it is even equipped with cable heating. In a house for seasonal living, the water supply is usually drained for the winter.

If the “summer” water supply pipes are supposed to be buried in the ground to a shallow depth (mainly in order to avoid tripping over them), the installation must be carried out with special care - when draining the water, it must go away completely, without accumulating in the bends of the pipes.

Popular materials for plumbing in both cases are polypropylene pipes. It is believed that they have greater elasticity than metal and metal-plastic, and due to this they are less susceptible to destruction when water freezes in them.

However, for “summer” water supply it makes sense to use polypropylene pipes connected by compression fittings, which makes it easy to replace a failed part of the system or change its configuration; pipes for year-round water supply, located deep in the ground, are connected by welding.

Sewerage for individual houses is a relatively new concept. Once upon a time, in rural areas, houses intended for very permanent residence were equipped with “in the yard” type amenities. Devices for processing waste through the activity of special bacteria (at that time they were not called septic tanks) and preparations for their use became available to the masses in the mid-90s.

Currently, it is possible to distinguish septic tanks for soil filtration and deep biological filtration. The latter works much more efficiently if the flow of wastewater occurs evenly, that is, it is less suitable for seasonal use. There are also septic tanks, which are a “cesspool of the 21st century” - a sealed container into which wastewater from the house flows by gravity.

When planning to place a septic tank on a site, you should provide access to it with special equipment for pumping out the contents. By the way, the treatment facilities of many cottage villages are a “battery” of septic tanks.

***
So, our two almost identical, at first glance, houses turned out to be completely different, both from a technical and consumer point of view. The differences are in the little things, but there are a lot of these little things, and the search for an answer to our main question gives rise to a lot of other, new interesting topics, which are still to be discussed.

Even more useful information from the world of real estate on our

What to build a house from?

or choosing a house construction technology

Everyone who thinks about building their own house first of all comes to the question - what technology should be used to actually build the house?

In this article we will try to analyze the main technologies for constructing low-rise buildings to help you with your choice. So, first you need to decide on the main thing - a permanent or seasonal home? If the house is a permanent residence, then you are not limited in the choice of construction technology; you can build using any one. But if the house is for seasonal residence (for example, a country house where they live in the summer, and in the winter they visit on weekends, holidays and vacations), then brick, monolithic houses and a house made of foam and aerated concrete are no longer necessary. Why?

There is only one main reason - limited frost resistance; all these materials have a limited number of freezing cycles. Plus (more precisely, a very big minus) added when constantly freezing and defrosting the house - problem with dampness and fungus that will damage the interior decoration of the house.

It is also important to take into account the heat capacity of the house. For example, houses made of brick, cellular concrete, timber and logs have a very high heat capacity. At the same time, houses built using frame technology or SIP have a very low heat capacity. What does this mean in practice? For example, you arrive on Friday for the weekend at your magnificent country house, it’s -20 outside. The heating turns on and... And two options:

1) Houses with high heat capacity, at best, will reach a comfortable mode in a day or two; until this time they will warm up, and not warm their inhabitants. When all the residents left on Sunday, turning off the heating, the house will remain warm for several more days. But there is no one there anymore, heating costs are wasted.

2) Houses with low heat capacity will be habitable within a couple of hours, and after 5-6 hours comfortable living is guaranteed. Of course, all this will happen with a well-designed heating system.

All of the above are not axioms; any situation can be solved. The question is different, what will be the price of this solution? To avoid problems with defrosting your home or warming up your seasonal home, for example, you can install a “smart” home heating control system. She herself will not allow the temperature of the internal premises to drop below a certain level, and will be able to preheat the boiler via SMS using a control command and raise the temperature to a comfortable one. But you will become a hostage to your home; any power outage or interruption in fuel for the boiler will require you to immediately resolve this situation. Don’t forget to also pay your electricity/gas/diesel fuel bill at the end of the heating season. And the amount will be very considerable.

Therefore, the choice for seasonal homes is narrowing. Materials are required that are not afraid of freezing during the cold season. These are wooden houses made of logs, frame houses, houses made of timber and houses made of SIP panels. We’ll talk about them in more detail in the second part of our article.